Raffold Abbey was huge and rambling, girt with many memories. They spent
nearly two hours wandering through the house and the old, crumbling
chapel.
"There is a crypt below," Priscilla said, "but we can't go down without
a lantern. Another day, if you cared----"
"Of course I should, above all things," declared Carfax. "I was just
going to ask when I might come again."
Their intimacy had progressed wonderfully during those hours of
companionship. The total absence of conventionality had destroyed all
strangeness between them. They were as children on a holiday, enjoying
the present to the full, and wholly careless of the future.
Not till Carfax had at length taken his leave did Priscilla ask herself
what had brought him there. Merely to view his friend's inheritance
seemed a paltry reason. Perhaps he was a journalist, or a writer of
guide-books. But she soon dismissed the matter, to ask herself a more
personal question. Was it possible that he knew her? Had he found out
her name after the New York episode, and come at last to seek her? She
could not honestly believe this, though her heart leapt at the thought.
That affair had taken place four long years before. Of course, he had
forgotten it. It could have made no more than a passing impression upon
him. Had it been otherwise, would he not have claimed her at once as an
old acquaintance?
Yes, it was plain that her first conviction must be correct. He did not
know her. The whole incident had passed completely from his memory,
crowded out, no doubt, and that speedily, by more absorbing interests.
She had flashed across his life, attaining to no more importance than a
bird upon the wing. He had saved her life at a frightful risk, and then
forgotten her very existence. She had always realised it must be so,
but, strangely, she had never resented it. In spite of it, with a
woman's queer, inexplicable faithfulness, she yet loved her hero, yet
cherished closely, fondly, the memory that she doubted not had faded
utterly from his mind.
She went to the village church with Froggy on the following day, though
fully alive to the risk she ran of being pointed out to the ignorant as
Lady Priscilla from the Abbey. She knew by some deep-hidden instinct
that he would be there, and she was not disappointed. He came in late,
and stood quite still just inside the little building, searching it up
and down with keen, quiet eyes that never faltered in their progress
till they lighted upon her. She fancied there was a faintly humorous
expression about his mouth. His look did not dwell upon her. He stepped
aside to a vacant chair close to the door, and Priscilla, in her great,
square pew near the pulpit, saw him no more. When she left the church at
the end of the service he had already disappeared.
Froggy went out to tea that afternoon with much solicitous regret, which
Priscilla treated in a spirit of levity. She packed her tea-basket again
as soon as she was alone, selecting her provisions with care. And soon
after three, accompanied by Romeo, she started for the glen, not
sauntering idly, but stepping briskly through the golden sunshine, as
one with a purpose. She felt as if she were going to a trysting-place,
though no word of a tryst had passed between them.
He was there before her, bareheaded and alert, quite obviously awaiting
her. He did not express his pleasure in words as he took her hand in
his. Only there was an indescribable look in his brown eyes that made
her very glad that she had come. He had brought an enormous basket of
strawberries, which he presented with that drawling ease of manner which
she had come to regard as peculiarly his own, and they settled down to
the afternoon's enjoyment in a harmony as complete as the summer peace
about them.
No spoken confidences passed between them. Their intimacy was such as to
make words seem superfluous. Both seemed to feel that the present was
all-sufficing.
Only once did Priscilla challenge Carfax's memory. The impulse was
irresistible at the moment, though she regretted it later. He was
holding out to her the biggest strawberry he could find. It lay on a
leaf on the palm of his hand, and as she took it she suddenly saw a
long, terrible scar extending upwards from his wrist till his sleeve hid
it from view.
"Why," she exclaimed, with a start; then, seeing his questioning look,
"surely that's a burn?"
"It is," said Carfax.
He turned his hand over to hide it. His manner seemed to indicate that
he did not wish to pursue the subject. But Priscilla, suddenly reckless,
ignored the hint.
"But how did you do it?" she asked.
Carfax hesitated for a second, then:
"It was years ago," he said, rather unwillingly. "A lady's dress caught
fire. It fell to me to put it out."
"How brave!" murmured Priscilla. Her eyes were shining. Had he looked up
then he must have read her secret.
But he did not look up. For the first time he seemed to be labouring
under some spell of embarrassment.
"It wasn't brave at all," he said, after a moment. "I could have done no
less."
There was almost a vexed note in his voice. Yet she persisted.
"What was she like? Wasn't she very grateful?"
"I don't know at all. I don't suppose she enjoyed the situation any more
than I did."
He plucked a tuft of moss and tossed it from him, as if therewith
dismissing the subject. And Priscilla felt a little hurt, though not for
worlds would she have suffered him to see it.
It fell to him to break the silence a few seconds later, and he did so
without a hint of difficulty.
"When am I going to see the crypt?"
Priscilla laughed a little.
"Are you writing a book about the place?"
He laughed back at her quite openly.
"Not at present. When I do, it will be a romance, with you for heroine."
"Oh, no; not me!" she protested. "I am a mere nobody. Lady Priscilla
ought to be your heroine."
He raised his eyebrows. She had begun to associate that look of his with
protest rather than surprise.
"I have yet to be introduced to Lady Priscilla," he said. "And as she
doesn't like men, I almost think I shall forego the pleasure and keep
out of her way."
"Perhaps I have given you a wrong impression about her," Priscilla said,
speaking with a slight effort. "It is only the idle, foppish men about
town she has no use for."
"She is fastidious, apparently," he returned, lying down abruptly at her
feet.
"Don't you like women to be fastidious?" Priscilla demanded boldly.
He lay quite motionless for several seconds, then turned in a leisurely
fashion upon his side to survey her.
"You are fastidious?" he asked.
"Of course I am!" Priscilla's words came rather breathlessly. "Don't you
think me so?"
Again he was silent for seconds. Then, in a baffling drawl, his answer
came:
"If you will allow me to say so, I think you are just the sweetest woman
I ever met."
Priscilla met his eyes for a single instant, and looked away. She was
burning and throbbing from head to foot. She could find naught to say in
answer; no word wherewith to turn his deliberate sentence into a jest.
Perhaps in her secret heart she did not desire to do so, for a voice
within her, a voice long stifled, cried out that she had met her mate.
And, since surrender was inevitable, why should she seek to delay it?
But Carfax said no more. Possibly he thought he had said too much. At
least, after a long, quiet pause, he looked away from her; and the spell
that bound her passed.
V